Haas Uses Blog to Woo Prospective Students

Students curious to know what it is like to attend the Haas School of Business do not have to look much further than their computer screens as they decide whether or not to enroll in the school’s MBA program.

Launched in 2006, the admissions blogs at Haas offer prospective students a window into what it is like to attend the business school in an effort to give students a way to get a taste of the MBA program with nothing more than a click of the mouse.

“We experiment with new media to inform prospective students,” said Peter Johnson, director of international admissions at Haas.

The blog program incorporates both a blog for administrators to post specific information for applicants and a student blog where current students post about their experiences at Haas.

On the student blog, current students post not only their comments about the business school but include personal anecdotes, ranging from dining at the campus faculty lounge to witnessing a dean’s impersonation of Elvis Presley.

Colin Campbell, a Haas alumnus and a blogger for the office of admissions, said in an e-mail that he volunteered to participate in the project because he enjoys blogging.

“I tried to (include) a bit of humor and some interesting or relevant bits about Haas, Cal, the Bay Area, or the students (in the blog),” he said.

While administrators at Haas do not edit or censor the posts on the student blogs, Johnson said volunteer writers are given general guidelines to follow.

Ben Jones, communications manager for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Admissions Office, said uncensored student blogs give prospective students the complete story about a school in a way that admissions officers cannot. The MIT admissions office was one of the first to popularize admission blogs when it launched its version in 2005.

“Prospective students really appreciate the feedback and responses on the blogs,” he said.

Although the blogs at Haas are not interactive, Johnson said they have been successful and were fairly active over the last few months.

Other schools on campus, including the School of Information Management and Systems, the Graduate School of Journalism and Boalt Hall School of Law, do not currently have admissions blog programs, but some officials said it was not out of the question.

Besides Haas, many other institutions around the country, including Seton Hill University, Harvard Law School and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, also maintain admissions blogs.

Jones said that while the blog at MIT was started as just a small component of the admissions Web site, it soon began to attract a majority of the traffic. He added that since MIT started its blog, approximately 100 institutions have launched their own.

Ashley Hoffman, an admissions counselor at Seton Hill—where an admissions blog was started in 2003— said the blogs have become more popular with universities as they adapt to an increasingly computer-savvy pool of prospective students.

“(Universities) have become more computer-friendly, and (more) students (are using) the web as a researching tool,” she said.

At Haas, Johnson said the blog program represents just another tool to try and woo prospective students to the campus.

“(This is) the millennial generation,” he said. “Students like to get information from different channels, share information and get perspective from current students.”

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